


The Romance of the Sword

by seraphim_grace



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Movie Fusion, F/M, Finstock calls his automatic machine gun cupcake, Highlander AU, M/M, Swords, Who wants to live forever, but no one you actually like, hinted kira/peter, lots of people die in this, lots of swords, there can only be one, there's beheadings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-16
Updated: 2015-02-16
Packaged: 2018-03-13 04:22:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 16,512
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3367625
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seraphim_grace/pseuds/seraphim_grace
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Highlander movie AU<br/>Derek is the immortal highlander caught in the terrible battle to the death over the mysterious prize, and Stiles is the professor helping the NYPD find out who is cutting off heads.</p><p>Inspired by the fact that Russell Mulcahey directed both Teen Wolf and Highlander I kinda had to.</p><p>Sterek Big Bang<br/>art to follow</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Romance of the Sword

[](http://s11.photobucket.com/user/seraphim_grace/media/romanceofthesword_zps87bafdb4.jpg.html)Art by Nikki_tan

“The Romance of the Sword”

\--

New York was a city that revealed itself at night. By day it wore the façade of a polished urbane madame, confident in her fur and garnets, but night revealed it was her own pelt and dotted with blood speckles. It suited him. He knew how it felt to wear a human face over his true nature.

Derek waited.

The buildings loomed on either side, dark and tall, the old iron fire escapes cracking in the winter cold, with the babble of voices, the roar of traffic and the occasional cat yowl breaking the night. New York was never quiet, not even in it’s darkest heart.

He didn’t have to wait long, a few of the prostitutes that lingered in the alley ways muttered amongst themselves, scared to approach him, one lit up, his face illuminated for a moment with a soft orange glow, before the lighter snapped shut. They were pointedly not watching. They were deliberately looking everywhere but at him. Nothing had the potential for anonymity as a big city.

The man that approached him wore a tan trench coat, his eyes were bright in the street lights, “Hale” he said calmly, “isn’t this a little public?” Manhattan was cold this late in the year and he wore his collar up against the wind.

“It’s New York,” Hale answered calmly, “twenty people standing around and no one sees anything.” He shrugged his shoulders. It was the sort of axiom that did well in cities. Then he dropped his head in a small bow, the man, nordic by his features, returned the bow before, with a hiss, a blade descended from his sleeve, Hale noticed it, but opened his floor length wool coat to reveal his own sword.

The battle was quick and almost silent, the Nordic man over extended on the second blow and Hale twisted out of it’s reach, his own blow coming down and severing the man’s head from his shoulders, embedding itself in the trashcan behind him, even as the head landed with a soft thud on the concrete before rolling between the trashcans. Most of their kind, the Europeans, had no counter for his much more fluid style, he had learned from the feet of the masters, not to win, just to live.

Hale staggered away from the scene, reassured no one had seen anything, his sword still hanging from his hands as he moved through the back streets, falling behind a pile of garbage where he was, as he always was after these encounters, sick. His sword rolling under the dumpster, but he was halfway to the subway before he noticed, and with the blue lights flashing he wasn’t about to turn and go back.

\---

(1513)

The woman had hard hands wrapped around her spoon, polished bright and red with years of hard work, as she stirred the fat into the mix of flour and yeast to make bread. “Are you going to show me then, lad?” She asked, sitting down on the wooden chair with the bowl on her knee as she stirred, never breaking beat as she worked the dough.

Derek felt self conscious as he came out into the main room from behind the wall where his father had dressed him in his armour, “our wee man is a big man now.” His father said, adjusting his pauldron on his shoulder. It wasn’t a full set of armour but a chest plate, pauldron on the left shoulder, bracers and a shield on his arm. His legs remained bare under his kilt. Derek felt exposed, even as his father adjusted his tartan over his other shoulder. 

“It’s too tight, father,” he said twisting to try and show that it was uncomfortable.

“Aye, lad,” his father told him, “but it’s the armour I wore, and that my father wore before me, and was a gift from the Duke’s grandfather himself,” he said patting him on the back. His father was a bear of a man and Derek, who was still gangly with youth, yet to reach his full growth at barely fourteen, was unsure how it had ever fit him. 

“It’s just a formality, lad,” his mother said, “you go to Edinburgh and present yourself to the Duke, you make your vows, and you spend your time as a soldier, and you come back with a wife all grown up tp have bairns of your own.” Derek’s mother was a beautiful woman with wide set heavy lidded eyes, high cheekbones and a full mouth, everyone commented on how much he looked like his mother, and like her he had no desire to see the wide world. He would have been happy to stay in the village working with horses for his entire life, but his father was a knight and so all of his sons would go to serve the Duke. Derek wasn’t the oldest, he was just the one who was of age.

One of his sisters was sat in the corner, in a well of sunlight, working her embroidery, “Derek with a wife,” she snorted, “it’ll sooner be pigs flying.”

“Pay her no mind, lad,” his father said, “she’ll see when your service is done, and you bring back a lass that makes you smile.”

Derek did not know then that those were the last words he ever heard her say.

Two weeks later when the Duke brought his soldiers to the town as fast as they could ride it was too late, the town was burned and his family, even down to the smallest bairn, wee Callum to small to be unstrapped from his ma’s back, was dead - beheaded and burned.

Three months later he met the woman in battle and she ran him through, he was saved by the soldiers, but the next day he was healed, and even the kinship he found there was gone, stolen by the lady with the straw coloured hair and the hard cold eyes who wore Spanish steel on her hip.

\---

(Present)

The lights were blazing in blue and red flashes as Stiles walked up to the scene. “Guys,” he said handing his empty coffee cup to one of the uniforms who were marking out the scene with tape, the uniform looked at the cup surprised but took it anyway. “You’re supposed to contact me at the same time as CSU if it’s a sword wound, you should know that, this is the fifth of these ones.”

“Well pardon meeeee.” Detective Daehler said dragging out the word, “sometimes we need to have a look and make sure we need to call in our resident expert, it might not be related.”

Stiles touched the sword that lay on the pavement with his sneaker, “yeah, this one’s not obviously mine.” He said, “let me guess, he lost his head.” He did his best CSI Miami impression, and the snort from Mahaelani suggested it was exactly what Daehler had said.

Daehler was an ass, wearing a suit jacket over a striped tee shirt and battered jeans, with his badge around his neck to make him look edgy, he said, Stiles thought more than that it was more a shield that said “don’t hit me, I’m NYPD”. No one liked Daehler, but he was good at his job, even if he was quick to anger and faster to bad quips.

Stiles was convinced that Mahalani was on some really good prescription drugs because he worked with the ass day in and day out and yet it wasn’t Daehler’s body lying headless in the alley. “So, Danny,” he said to Maehalani, “we have a white caucasian male, early thirties, decapitated, anything I need to know?”

Stiles was on secondment from Hudson University for this case, he had minored in criminology but his true love was weapons holding a doctorate in history, with a masters in metallurgy. College had been expensive for him. He looked too young at twenty nine to hold the credentials he did and only slightly younger and Daehler and Mahaelani.

He pulled on his gloves, the purple expensive ones from the university with a nap. “Let me look at you, beautiful.” He said, squatting down and lifting the sword, “do you know what this is?” he held it aloft, “It’s a Toledo Salamanca broadsword.”

“That special?” Daehler drawled. 

Stiles resisted the urge to scoff at him, “you ever see the Princess Bride, Matt?” he asked him, “This is Montoya’s sword, or one of the same type, and this one,” he ran his thumb over the raised guard, “is a beautiful example of one, this is a very rare sword, very rare, if it’s real, and I won’t know until I get it back to the lab, we’re talking three million, four easy.” He handed the sword to a CSU tech with an evidence bag, “and everyone here saw it so it will be very difficult for it to wander now, and I’m more than happy to have a uniform accompany it to the lab at the university.” He grinned at the gathered police, things wandered from crime scenes, they just walked off for no one to see them again. 

Stiles moved to the back of the crime scene, the head had been removed by the coroner, who was currently gathering up the body, now CSU had finished with it. “The best thing about New York crime scenes,” Mahaelani said standing beside him, “is twenty something people standing around and no one sees nothing.”

“I know, it’s a gift,” he said, “hello,” he said seeing the mark on the trashcan, and pulling tweezers and a bag from his pocket. He was always prepared when he came to a crime scene. After the first body he had lost his squeamishness.

“I wish you wouldn’t talk to evidence.” Mahaelani said as Stiles pulled out a metal splinter. “It’s really creepy, I might like you otherwise.”

“All the work in the lab,” Stiles said, “that sword didn’t make this cut.” He mused, “nor that blade in his hand. I think they were both his, do we have a name on him?”

“Passport in the name of Garrison Myers, Norwegian national.” Danny answered, reading the info off his note pad.

“Now why would a Norwegian have a spanish broadsword,” he asked holding up the metal splinters, “and a blade fixed to a spring loaded mechanism on his arm, so that’s five headless corpses so far, right?” he asked. “And expensive swords on each one, is this some sort of fight club or do we have a serial killer who can afford to leave million dollar swords at crime scenes?”

He turned to look at Danny, then stopped, “I need a big baggy.” He said and walked over to the dumpster, still squatting, and pulled out a second sword, this one with a white handle and leather scabbard, but it was curved like a samurai sword. “Now where did you come from lovely?” he asked it.

“On the day one of those answers you,” Danny said snapping open the big bag, “I want to be there to see the expression on your face.”

Stiles grinned dropping the sword into the bag. “You ever hear about the demon slaying sword of Japan?” he asked, “apparently a samurai did a deal with a demon slaying creature that empowered his sword to kill demon, or oni, but with a proviso, if the samurai killed one thousand oni he would become oni himself. he killed nine hundred and ninety nine oni and then turned the sword on himself. That sword is held under lock and key in Tokyo, held by the emperor, but if a sword was ever going to answer me back - it would be that one.”

Danny just shook his head, “you need to get out more, and not to crime scenes, get yourself a hot woman, a hotter man, both if you can, so you don’t go around talking to steel.”

“Well, that Japanese one would be bronze.” Stiles corrected him with a grin.

“I stopped listening.” Danny told him going back to the crime scene, he stopped for a moment listening to the radio fixed to his lapel. “Now maybe you could talk to this one, we just arrested someone two blocks from here, a prostitute who is offering a description of the murderer. You think it’s a demon possessed sword from ancient Japan?”

“Ha ha,” Stiles said, “what do you know, with the right incentive even the blind of New York can see.”

\---

1522

Paige had soft black hair she washed by rain water and a laugh like a babbling brook. Her hands were capable and rough against his skin and when she spoke there was a certain softness to her, but her skin was moon pale, dotted with a dark mole under her left eye where, Derek told her, an angel had laid a kiss, the bow of her lips was so perfect that that same angel had pressed his finger there and whispered in her ear, hush for I am with thee, and she had known it to be true.

Derek wanted nothing more than to give her the world, but all the world she wanted was their small house in the shadow of Mont St Michel with their land. There was money enough when they needed it, Derek had worked as a sellsword after being driven away from his land, but mostly they grew what they needed and traded what they didn’t for things they did. 

Derek had never been so happy, laughing with joy for no other reason than she was there and she loved him as much as he loved her, and he loved her so greatly he expected to explode like a mushroom with the glee of it. Sometimes she danced through the fields of lavender with laughter and her hair falling free of it’s confines. And Derek loved the smell of it on her feet and in her hair when she curled up into him at night, and he couldn't get past the wonder of that, that she, so small and perfect and lavender scented loved him.

He should have known it was not to last.

\---

(Present Day)

Stiles was on the treadmill in his office with his ipod blaring from his bose dock as he waited for the test results to come in. he was full of excitement, too much, he felt for a human body to contain and running helped. It wasn't easy to run in New York so when he got his own office at Hudson he installed a treadmill. He did most of his best work on the treadmill, well, after getting down from it.

"All alone got a girl in the city.  
Hey, got a room and a place for two.  
Got a goat and a phone. I said, boy, a-you are my Fifth Avenue.  
Round an around an around I go. Round an around this time for keeps.  
(Say, you weren't to the hang man for me my baby, yea)  
Round an around an around I go. Round an around this time for keeps.  
(Say, you weren't too long then for me- me my baby)  
Father only you can save my soul,  
And playing that organ must'a count for something, something..." He wailed along with Tori. It was an album he hadn't liked at first but repeated listens whilst studying with Lydia, her reading pure maths and him reading history, and weapon-smithing with the coffee pot almost always empty, meant it became his favourite soon enough. 

There may have been a hip wiggle. "Skinny white boy dancing on a conveyor belt." Danielle said pushing open the door; she never knocked, she had never bothered with such things. Instead she just showed up with her arms full. She was Stiles' liaison with the CSU, who mostly, to a man, hated him. Danielle had that sense of bemused patience, like she knew no matter how stupid he was he'd deliver and it would look good on her, but she had to put up with him in the meantime. "And singing his skinny white boy songs."

"If it isn't the love of my life?" Stiles said climbing off the treadmill and then turning the music down, but not off, "and Danielle, you brought her."

"Ha ha ha," Danielle drawled out, putting the two swords down on the desk for him. "You have to sign for these, they're still in evidence."

"What about the spring loaded one?" Stiles asked as he signed the evidence form handing it back to her.

"Less than a year old, we've had one of those through the department before, gang killing if you'd believe it."

"Nothing surprises me about this town any more." He said with a smile, "we have a serial killer going around beheading people and leaving super rare swords as his calling card."

"Would have prefered roses." Danielle said, "easier to identify, don't have to go across the city to get them named."

Stiles smiled at her, "this one," he said lifting the rapier with the elaborate handle, "is a Toledo Salamanca, one of very few made, with gold plated hand guard and a spanish leather scabbard, museum quality," he put it back down and lifted the white sword, "now this one is more of a mystery, it's a tomodachi katana, clearly,a foot short, but definitely a katana, but the saya is leather not bamboo and the cording over the shagreen," he showed her the handle, "is European Renaissance not Japanese, but those metal splinters I dug out of the dumpster they're folded over two hundred times but date at six hundred BC."

Danielle crossed her arms under her sizeable bosom, it made her look even more intimidating which was a feat for a short black woman. Her expression was one of the "I don't give a damn but you're going to tell me anyway" variety.

"They didn't develop the technique until the middle ages." He explained, “nearly two thousand years later.” She still didn’t look impressed. "Do you bake, Danielle?" he asked her. She had the face, the one that asked him why he was still talking but knew he wasn't going to stop any time soon. "To make certain types of pastry you fold it, you roll it out, fold it over, roll it out again, turn it and fold it, and the more folds you put into it the flakier and softer the pastry. Certain steel working is the same, the more folds you put into the metal the more flexible and stronger the metal is. A Masamune sword might have as many as eighty folds." He explained it, and she knew that once he started on his topic it was going to take an apocalypse to shut him up before he was done. "This one is centuries older with more folds, and has iridium in it."

"Interesting then?" She asked.

His grin was as sharp as the tomodachi's edge when he answered her. "Fascinating."

"And why should I care?"

"There is a missing Masamune sword, it's currently valued at two billion dollars." Danielle's jaw dropped open. "Those swords were made around 1250, if the tests are right that sword right there is about eighteen hundred years older, and fixed with iridium, it won't be worth quite that much, especially not without the saya and the cording being wrong, but maybe 100 million." He said it almost nonchalantly. Danielle backed away, and took a deep breath before he started again, "and someone was, as late as last night, using it. Tell me that's not fascinating."

"The word you're looking for," she said returning to snark to centre herself, "is terrifying. Things like that should be in a museum."

"Swords are an expensive hobby," Stiles told her, flopping down into his chair, "some of us need to get doctorates to get near these swords."

"I took a cab here." She said, "and you're telling me I had a hundred million dollars in my lap?" She was suitably aghast.

"A hundred ten," he said, "the Salamanca could get that on a good day at auction."

"So," Danielle said with a leer, "how do you get started collecting swords?"

\---

Matt Daehler looked at the man in the chair opposite him, he'd read him his rights but the man looked completely nonplussed, his suit perfect with not a speck of dirt on him and his beard neatly trimmed. He was the sort of man who was almost offensively good looking which set Daehler’s teeth on edge.

People shouldn't look like that outside of photoshopped People Magazine spreads. He had dark glasses perched on top of a perfect strong nose and a jawline you could use to square wardrobes, and he was rich, so Daehler wanted to fuck his perfect life so hard it hurt. "So, Mr Nash," he drawled the name out like it left a stain in his mouth. "You wanna start by telling me what you were doing at our murder scene last night."

Nash took a deep breath and pushed his glasses up his nose with his middle finger and thumb, one against each of the shoulders in a gesture Daehler hadn’t seen before.

"I was on a date, you'll see I have receipts,” he gestured to the pile of paper on the table between them, “and on the subway on my way home, we didn't hit it off, I came over sick, my sashimi didn't agree with me, I went out of the subway to find a bodega or deli or cafe that might still be open so I could get some mint or ginger tea to settle my stomach, I threw up in the alley, then I went into the local seven eleven, got some coke, flat- it works to stop you being sick in a pinch, and got a taxi." He had told the exact same story several times over and it was starting to sound rote. "I didn't see anything happen there, there were a few prostitutes on the corner but I waved them off, I was more concerned with being sick."

"You see someone was killed in that alley and the prostitutes say you did it." Daehler sat back in his chair.

"Those same rent boys who gave me a mouthful when I stumbled past them and blew them off?"

"You see, here's what I think," Daehler said, "I think you went into that alley cruising for some ass, because your date wouldn't put out, so you took him into that alley and murdered him for his wallet, then you threw up horrified at what you did."

"Why, officer, you want some of this ass?" Nash asked him, the sarcasm dripping from his voice, "you get one of those pretty boys on the corner to drop to his knees for you and he IDs a suspect, you get a blow and and ID and you get all the praise in the station, and why, that poor boy he gets paid which is all he wants, isn't it."

Daehler lunged at the man, "Daehler," Danny said opening the door. "That's enough." He looked across at Nash, "your lawyer is here," he said, "and you're free to go, but don't leave town, we still have questions."

"If I can help you in any way." Nash said standing up and offering his hand to Danny, "him I'd rather not." Danny didn't say anything.

"I had this," Daehler snarled when the door was closed. 

"His lawyer had this." Danny corrected him.

"He didn't ask for one."

"He owns an antiques store on Hudson Street, he doesn't need to ask for one. He also gave us permission to search both his home and his shop, it does look like he's on the level about what he told us."

"You're only saying that because he's hot." Matt was still angry.

"He really was." Danny agreed, "but I'm not that shallow, dumbass, we keep a discreet eye on him just in case, but his lawyer is a cold blooded lizard king, I don't want to have to deal with him ever again. Next time I interview the hot murder suspect and you deal with the lizard lawyer from Whittemore and Associates.."

\---

Lydia Martin was a goddess, Stiles knew that from the first time he laid eyes on her in third grade when she punched a boy in the face for trying to look up her skirt. She was beautiful, smart and as fierce as a pissed off t-rex on a rampage, she was his perfect life mate but the idea of having sex with her baffled him on several occasions and they had even tried once or twice.

She was his platonic soul mate, a role both of them knew, and shared a brownstone that neither could afford on their own, but were happy to live with each other as both were neat and because of their work in academe both maintained late hours in their own private offices surrounded by books.

Lydia Martin was incredible math and Stiles, for one, wouldn't have it any other way.

"Hey Lyds," he asked pushing the open door to her private bathroom a little wider. Lydia was getting ready for bed with her glorious red hair bound in a loose braid at the nape of her neck, and a pair of sloppy oversized sweat pants and a vest, she was brushing her teeth when he came in, something they did to the other all the time. If the door wasn't locked they didn't mind being disturbed, and Lydia had read him maths proofs sat on the toilet whilst he was in the shower. "How's your Japanese?"

"Not good enough to get you out of apologising to Satomi." Satomi was one of the professors of Asian Studies at the university and Stiles was terrified of her, with good reason. 

"That tea looked like swamp water, and smelled like old socks, who knew how it tasted?"

"That tea was expensive," she answered, "and a kind gesture from a colleague who heard you were sick, it's an ancient Chinese remedy and very good for the immune system." Lydia was smiling sweetly at him. "And you were very rude to her so now you are stuck with no one to do your translations for you, because she won't let her department or students do it."

"But it was awful, Lyds." He pouted, "and it's not that much." He had a piece of paper with him, a computer print out of a scan of a very old piece of parchment which had been folded, and refolded so many times many of the fold lines were coming apart and written on it were the thick swirling lines of old cursive Japanese, and not modern kanji.

"I can't read this." Lydia said, "and I'm not sure Satomi could either, it might have to go to Tokyo." Stiles swore under his breath, "it might be Ainu, but this word," she poked at it with a perfectly manicured nail, they were, that week, peacock blue, "is prize and that word I think is dead." 

He kissed her on the cheek, revelling in the night time smells of her for a moment, ponds cold cream, baby lotion, and cinnamon chapstick, "what about this one?" He pulled the second piece of paper from his back pocket and unfolded it.

It was a rubbing of the engraving on the sword. "This one I can read," she said, "it says, Apologise to Satomi, bring her Umeshu and she might forgive you enough to answer." She kissed him on the cheek, mirroring his gesture, "now don't stay up too late, honey, and you know how the Dean feels about you crowdsourcing translations on the internet." That was one of the only things Stiles had ever gotten a reprimand over, even if it wasn't formal, sharing medieval documents, well scans of them, rather than going through the usual academic channels. It wasn't his fault that the usual academic channels took months and crowd sourcing took hours.

Stiles went back down to the kitchen and looked at the clock before he called Satomi, yeah, she wouldn't like being called at eleven pm on a weeknight just because Stiles needed a translation, but the mystery was eating away at him. He booted up his laptop and made himself a cup of spearmint tea whilst he thought about it, he'd get some Umeshu and some of the expensive matcha green tea she liked, putting through the order to be picked up tomorrow.

The scan was in his dropbox, he thought, he could always lie to the internet about what it meant, it would be quicker even if it was just the rubbing of the inscription and then when Satomi forgave him, which she should after fifty dollars of Sakura Umeshu. 

\---

(Spring 1523)

Paige was chasing a hen around their yard in preparation for their supper. Her hems were thick with mud and the more the chicken eluded her the more she laughed. Derek could have watched her laugh until the end of time and not consider a moment of it wasted.

He stepped out of the doorway, wrapping his arms around her waist from behind and swinging her up into a kiss on the back of her neck. "You're all muck and muscle," she said tilting her head to bare more of her neck to him, "and if I don't catch that hen then it will be turnips for supper, again."

He just laughed and squeezed her a little tighter, "and if I want you for supper."

"You'll have to wait till I've caught that hen, you could help me." 

"But I'm all muck and muscle." He teased, using her words against him, "just the way you like me."

"I like you better with a full belly, my lord." She said, and wriggled from his grasp, reaching up on the tips of her toes to kiss him on the mouth, "and we are having chicken stew for supper."

Derek stopped then, his head full of a sudden and blinding pain, which came with it a roiling nausea and a cotton feeling to his tongue. "My lord," Paige said, her tone turning from amused and playful to worrying, but just as soon as it came the pain was gone. 

"Tis nothing, lass, just the thought of chicken stew, or fried turnips and lying with you caused me a moment's pause, your stew is good, love." He called her love all the time, as if when he didn't get the word out enough he would explode from holding it in.

The horse seemed to come from nowhere, with the dandy on it perfectly turned out. "I am looking for Derek Hale," he said. The man was perfectly groomed, in brushed suede and velvet sewn with semi precious stones and beads of glass, his hair slicked back with lemon oil and there was a strange looking sword at his hip. He looked at Derek with bright blue eyes and a slow smirk, "well met, highlander."

"Get inside," Derek said, pushing Paige behind him towards the door.

"Rest easy," the nobleman said, and swung down from his horse, and then offered his hand as he would to an equal, "I am Peter Hale, and I think we might be related."

\---

(Present)

Dr Satomi Ito was not the official head of the Pan-Pacific studies part of Hudson University, however everyone knew she had been in control for ever and might possibly be a dragon - which no one dared say to her face. She was in her early sixties all the male professors who worked in the Japanese department, as it was more commonly called, were waiting impatiently for her to finally retire so they might possibly take over, even if Dr Sagawa was the official head.

Stiles went into her office with a bottle of Sake and a bottle of Umeshu wrapped in a pretty cloth called a Furoshiki.

She looked up from the book she was reading and said "No." 

"You don't know what I want yet." He put the liquor on the table. "I want to apologise."

"You want to apologise for turning down my very expensive Reishi tea which I brought you when you were sick to make you feel better, and then insulting it?" She raised her eyebrow in a way that would have made Mr Spock envious.

"Yes." He said.

"And it has nothing to do with the medieval Japanese you found on the mystery sword, or the document you found in it's handle?" She continued.

"Dammit." He said, "it's," he shrugged. "I was an asshole about the tea, I admit it, and I was wrong, and I should have apologised months ago instead of letting it fester." She didn't disagree. "But I've been taking Japanese lessons, I'm almost fluent now, but," he put the print out on the table, "I can't read that."

Satomi looked across at it, "because it's not Japanese." She said calmly, "it's Ainu."

"But can you read it?" 

"Is that Umeshu?" She asked.

"The best money can buy in this city." He agreed.

"From the place on ninth?" She asked.

"The one and only." He knew he was pushing it, Satomi was a wrathful deity who could set his work back months, "and it's not the stuff with collagen because you said it made your teeth itch." She looked suspicious. Satomi Ito looked like she was in a Kar Wai Wong movie, wearing a series of knee length printed qi pao in different patterns daily, her hair was swept up in a distinctly old fashioned style and there was a delicately knitted cardigan over her shoulders. She might have looked like someone’s grandmother but she was still more formidable than most of the professors in the university put together. One did not lightly cross her. "Can you give me a lowdown of what it says."

"When the time comes," she said, and he wilted, "the distant shores will call the chosen and they shall" she stopped for a moment, "fight to the death, and to the winner goes the prize- don't lose your head."

Stiles let out a breath he didn't know he was holding. "That's it."

"Briefly, some of the words are very old, some don't have equivalents in English, but that's the idea of it."

"And this word?" he asked pointing to the one that was separate.

"Kirei." She answered, "it means pretty." She looked at him, "now get out of my office."

"Certainly." He went to scoop up the copy, but she stopped him. "One of my doctorate students could do with the work," she said, "he specialises in Ainu, he will give you a better translation, but I expect dinner." There was no brooking an argument with Satomi so he agreed. "And acknowledgement in the book."

"I'm not sure there's going to be a book," he admitted, "this sword doesn't exist and everything I find keeps going back to a fairy tale."

"The Chosen and the Gathering." She agreed.

"You know the story?" he asked.

She raised her eyebrow again, looking less like a beneficent grandmother than a violent overlord preparing murder. "They are without death, chosen for a purpose we cannot understand, unable to die unless their heads are severed from their bodies, and when the time comes they will be summoned to a distant land where they will fight to the last, and the victor gets the prize."

"There's a little more to it than that but yeah, how did you know, this story is obscure?"

"I just translated it." She told him sweetly. "Now get out of my office. My office hours aren't for you." That was true, Satomi's office hours were for her, none of her students ever risked crossing her threshold for them.

\---

(Spring 1523)

Derek stood on the prow of the boat with his back straight as Peter lay in the well of it singing and out of tune ballad about a woman in a place Derek had never heard of that had too many syllables for him to remember. He still wasn’t sure why he was doing this, but Peter was charming and he had the most amazing ability to talk Derek into things he wanted him to do without actually mentioning the things he wanted Derek to do so it seemed like Derek came up with them on his own, at which point Paige would join him in celebrating the idea and Derek found himself stood on the prow of their small fishing boat whilst Peter lay there singing bawds and taking snuff. - rocking the boat violently every time he sneezed.

“Balance,” Peter chided every time Derek so much as wobbled. Derek wobbled a lot, because every time Peter sneezed the boat rocked - and Peter was sneezing a lot. 

“Why are we doing this?” Derek snarled. Peter sneezed. “Stop it, you overdressed Spanish peacock.” 

“I’m not Spanish,” Peter said insulted, “I’m Phoenician.” Then he sneezed again, working the last of the snuff from his nose.

“I’ll fall in,” Derek warned him, “You have a face like a haggis.” He had resorted to insults now.

“What the hell is a haggis.”

“A boiled sheep’s stomach, stuffed with meat and barley.” Derek told him.

Peter went grey in the boat, wiping his nose with the side of his hand. “And what do you do with it?”

“You eat it.” Derek answered. Peter went even more grey. Then he grinned at Derek, his discomfort gone, “if you insult someone in a fight, it works better to do it with something they might actually be insulted by and not baffled.”

“I can fight.” 

At that Peter laughed, “you have a face like a turnip and smell like a sheep’s arse,” he said, and started to rock the boat. “And the manners of sheep’s shit.”

“Stop that.” Derek said trying hard to compensate for the rocking. “I’ll fall in and I can’t swim.” With that Peter stood up in the boat and pushed Derek - hard so he fell in. Derek started thrashing around, “I can’t swim, I can’t swim.”

“You can’t drown,” Peter shouted at him over the clamour as he lay back in the boat. “You’re immortal.” Then he went back to singing about the lady of Padua who had nothing ladylike about her.

 

\---

(Present)

Hudson University Library was a miracle of architecture, in that no matter how they extended it it wasn't nearly as big as it had to be. No matter what they did they still ended up with more books in storage than they wanted, and the microfiche department of journals was slowly taking over, because of that the librarians were in a constant state of annoyance and collection of fines so that they could possibly extend again, even though there was nowhere left on campus for them to go without taking over the geology department.

Mostly the professors avoided the library and it's cantankerous guardians, sending TAs for the books they wanted, or just buying the book themselves and then sneaking it into the stacks if they didn't want to keep them. But sometimes they needed, not the books, but the librarians themselves.

"Boyd, my good man," Stiles said leaning against the counter.

"No," Boyd answered calmly. Boyd didn't look like a librarian, he was built like an American footballer with a shaved head and heavy lidded eyes. Considering how ripped he was, and Stiles had seen him without his shirt once and knew exactly how ripped he was - which was very- Stiles had a theory that he was working out in the underground archives using the books as weights.

"I thought we were friends." Stiles whined.

"You thought wrong, Stilinski." Boyd answered, "I'm working."

"It's in your technical capacity I want you right now." Stiles was leaning against the counter, ignoring the students that were coming and going around him. "I need a book."

"This is a library." Boyd deadpanned, "it's full of books."

"But there's the problem I have no idea what book I want." 

Boyd did not look amused. "You'll owe me dinner for this." He said, "and acknowledgement in the new book I know you're writing." Everyone thought he was writing a book, he wasn't sure he had enough for one yet, just a mystery that was eating him alive. 

"It's a myth," 

"Folklore is on the second floor." Harris, the head librarian snarked.

"I know that." Stiles drawled, Harris hated him and he hated Harris. It worked for them. "But I don't know where to start." Boyd, if anything looked even less impressed. "But I found the story in a Japanese sword, it's about some sort of super contest between gods or demigods involving beheading and some sort of nebulous prize."

"Asou." Harris said, and scribbled out a number on a scrap of paper. There were always scraps of paper and paper stars at the library desk, Harley, the other head librarian hated people and would sit making origami stars so she didn't kill them and hide their bodies in the archives, except the damp from the blood would warp the books, and cause even more flies. There was a huge jar full of the stars behind the counter. Stiles had, on more than one occasion showed up to her shift with a box of washi paper after introductory lectures for freshmen.

"Thanks!" Stiles said grinning at Harris. "You're a life saver."

"Acknowledgements, Stilinski." Harris answered in a low drawl, "give them to Boyd, I'm not sure I want to be associated with whatever idiocy you publish." And that was Stiles' relationship with Harris summed up in a single sentence.

\---

"Dr Stilinski," the student said shaking him lightly. He was asleep sprawled over a pile of books and notepads, having gone through so many of them, "Dr Stilinski," she looked like a sheep that might at any moment be slaughtered as he blinked up at her. "Dr Stilinski, Dr Harris said to wake you, it's nearly ten pm." Stiles blinked again, trying to get the sleep out of his eyes. "We're closing." It was like Harris to have one of the students who worked the counter checking books out to wake him, if possible Harris did none of the grunt work himself.

"Shit," Stiles said, "I didn't mean to fall asleep."

The girl grinned, "I don't think anyone ever does," she said, "did you find what you were looking for?"

"Not really, but that's my fault, not yours." He gathered up the books, putting his notepads into his bag, "do you need help putting these back?" he asked, surveying the carnage of his research binge.

"I can put these aside if you want to come back tomorrow," she offered, picking them up.

"About the only thing I learned is I might have to visit some of the other New York college libraries to find out what I need, it's easier to take the subway than ask Harris to order them for me." That was a bit of an understatement, Harris hated him, being murdered and dumped in a ditch would have been more pleasant than getting Harris to order books for him. "I need a drink." He admitted, "if Harris wants me, which he might to disembowel me or something I'm going to be at Clancy Brown's." He rolled his shoulders, tight and uncomfortable from falling asleep across the desk, before he pushed his glasses back up on his nose.

\---

(Summer 1523)

Paige had packed the two of them a cold lunch and a bottle of wine when they went for the day. Derek could not argue that most of what Peter was teaching him was useful, he was becoming skilled with the sword, when previously he had considered himself good but had been hacking away much like someone would cut wood, which had left him open to many stinging wounds as Peter pointed out the holes in his defences.

“What I don’t get,” Derek said laying back on the heather with a full belly and muscles pleasantly worn out, he was not a lazy man given to sitting still, he was a blacksmith and he managed their small holding with Paige, he was used to labour but this was different, and he was tired, “is why?”

“Ask me if there is a god next.” Peter drawled.

“Of course there is a god,” Derek answered under his breath. 

“I can’t answer that,” Peter said, “because I don’t know, I promised I would not lie to you and I haven’t, but I can’t answer it because I don’t have answers. All we have to go on is a story that was old when I was younger than you.” Peter claimed to be nearly three thousand years old, some days Derek thought he was full of shit, but other days he seemed to know things he shouldn’t about times past. 

Derek made a noise that might have been go on, or a belch.

“We are immortal, we do not sicken and we do not die, but we can be killed. If we lose our heads the immortal who took it takes our lives and our strength, that sickness you felt when we met, we call it the Quickening.” He stopped, took a long draught of the wine before he went on, “and when we kill another of our kind we receive that and more, it can make us sick, knock us from our feet, make us collapse, we are never as weak as we are when the Quickening has us, but we gain their strength, in part their knowledge, and we are. No one knows why and I have heard a thousand reasons for it. We are born all over the world, of all races, women too.” He added as an after thought, “and we are driven to kill our kind, and when we do we become empowered. And we know that at the last, when only a few of us remain we will be summoned to a far off place in a movement called the Gathering where those of us who survived will fight to the last, and to the victor goes the prize.”

“And what’s the prize?” Derek asked.

“A hundred impossible questions before supper, have you considered the priesthood?” Derek barked out a laugh. Peter laughed at him for a long minute before he went still and quiet, reaching down to take a hank of the rough bread Paige had packed for them, he broke off a piece in his hand and then ate it in slow measured bites as if deciding how to tell Derek something. This was unusual behaviour for all that Peter kept secrets, he didn’t show that he did.

“Paige is a good woman, and you were lucky to find her, brother, which is why it’s so hard to tell you to let her go.” He swallowed down more of the wine from their leather tankards. Paige normally only gave them little metal beakers for wine, but when Derek had told her, arms around her waist and his face buried in the curl of her neck as she complain about him being all muck and muscle and smelling like wet sheep, that the training worked up a mighty thirst she had switched them out.

“I will not.” Derek maintained.

“I have married three times.” Peter said “and each time told myself it would be the last. The last, her name was Kirei, and she was beautiful from a country far beyond what you would see in a human lifetime. She had hair darker even that Paige’s, coarse as a raven’s wing, and as bright. She wore these white dresses, and over these robes, tied tight around her waist and she was so small I sometimes thought she could fit into the palm of my hand. She wore this necklace of obsidian beads and polished ivory carved like teeth with a hole drilled through them that clacked and knocked together as she walked. She always smelled like laurels, the oil of which she used when she washed her hair, and she had soft high breasts, like little apples, and a voice like a songbird, and I loved her almost to the point of madness.” He stopped, drank another large draught of the wine, and Derek didn’t press at first but then Peter remained silent.

“What happened?”

“What always happens.” Peter said, “she grew up, she grew old, she died.” He sounded almost cold when he said it, “and I watched her do it, just as I watched the two wives before her. Just as Kastagir has lost a hundred wives and every one of us has lost wives or husbands before us. We do not grow old, brother, and we cannot have children. You are doing her a disservice, let her go, brother, let her find another husband, one that will swell her belly and surround her with pretty little children, let her remember you kindly, because you will never stop loving her, you will never change how you feel, but she will.”

She will grow old and weak as you remain strong, and she will hate you for it. She will lose her beauty as you retain your strength and vigor and she will hate you for it. She will see other women with the children you cannot give her and she will hate you for it, and then you will be mistaken for her son and she will hate you more. And then, when your heart is breaking and caught between the love you have for her and the hate she has for you, the envy and the broken loyalty, she will die and you will want nothing more than to crawl into the grave with her, unto the pyre, or there on her bier. 

“You will do everything in your power to climb into hell with her and it won’t do anything, you will drink yourself to the point a man would drown, and nothing will happen, you will walk the ocean floor hoping one of the creatures of the deep will consume you, you will fight in wars you care not for, but ultimately you will live. So I give you the only counsel I can give you, let her go, brother. Save her the heartache.”

\---  
(Present)

The precinct was a busy building full of bustling people and human noise as Stiles crossed through it. He had signed in at the counter and was bumbling through the sea of people and wondered how anyone got anything done as he went into the bullpen where the detectives worked. “Danny, my man,” he called out when he saw Detective Mahaelani. He went over to his desk and put his badge on the desk, noticing the open folder. Stiles was not a good person so of course he checked. Danny frowned at him as he closed it.

“You got an update for me, Stiles?”

“Nah, just an open period for lunch and I figured if I was stuck with this then I might as well share lunch with someone else as stuck as me.”

“You paying?” Danny asked, he was a cop, they were naturally suspicious.

“Yeah, I get paid way more than you do.” He said, “hot dogs okay, I just needed out of the office and well, it’s a lovely day.” Danny looked at the window, it was overcast and turning cold outside.

“What do you want, Stiles?” Danny asked.

“Out of my lab.” Stiles admitted ruefully, “and I’m a bit starved of conversation, all I’ve seen lately are striations and metal folds.” 

Danny seemed to accept that as he lifted his jacket, “well a free lunch is a free lunch.”

They walked out of the office and were half way through the bullpen when Stiles stopped, “I forgot my lanyard,” he said, “they won’t let me out of the building with it.”

He went back, pulling his iphone out of his pocket as he did, which was not unusual for Stiles, and opened the folder, taking a photo of the main page, “why hello, beautiful,” he said as he copied the information, after all Danny had no information about the sword, but maybe the suspect did.

\---

Stiles double checked the address three times before he walked across the road dodging traffic, he had told his father - the sheriff of a small town in North California - that crossing the road in New York was exactly like playing Frogger which might not have been the smartest thing to tell his dad. It was true though.

The shop front was well maintained, painted a duck egg blue with "Antiques" written in a curling script, and an old sign reading "bought and sold" in the window. The pieces on display though were far from the usual tat found in stores that accepted walk ins. It was delicate Belleek pottery, which Stiles recognised from the Antiques Roadshow reruns he used to watch with his dad, in soft pastel greens and pinks, with delicate seashell feet and translucent bodies. There was a Clarice Cliff tea set with geometric shaped tea cups and a bright orange and blue design painted on it. There was no jewellery he could see in the window, which made sense Stiles supposed. A box of old books was visible through the displays, and a few locked cabinets, but the walls were covered in expensive nicknacks and other quaint things.

When he pushed it open the door hit a small bell on a spring giving a pleasant ringing. A woman behind the counter looked up from her knitting, "can I help?" she asked. She looked to be in her seventies at least with grey hair dyed with blonde cut in a neat pageboy and she had large expressive brown eyes, and a mouth still painted pillarbox red. She was in the very height of fashion but was knitting something in pale pink mohair and her hands didn't stop even when she started working.

"I was hoping to enquire an item that just came into my possession." He said with a smile, "a Japanese katana." He could play dumb, even if every part and parcel of him wanted to say an sixth century BC tomodachi complete with lotus stamped tsuba but with a Renaissance Spanish leather scabbard in place of the original saya. He had given the sword a name in his own notes, in case anyone tried to steal his research, he called her Kirei. It meant beautiful.

"We don't trade in weapons, I'm afraid," she put down her knitting briefly, actually transferring one end of her large circular needle into the other hand and pulled a card out from a box on the counter, "but I can recommend you to someone much better." The more she spoke the more she revealed a slight accent that Stiles couldn't place, but for the most part it was polished Manhattanite.

"It's okay, Erika," the man said coming out from the back room. He was wearing a mid to expensive dark suit that appeared perfectly tailored to him, and dark framed glasses, but Stiles had to catch his breath looking at the man. He was gorgeous, which he hadn't expected, with a strong jawline, a straight nose and a shadow of dark scruff with bright coloured eyes under thick black brows. His figure seemed to match his face, stocky but with more muscle than bulk and hands that Stiles wondered if they had been sculpted by god. Stiles was caught between asking this man what was going on about the apparent sword-fight-club going on in Manhattan to finally slake his curiosity, and falling to his knees and offering to suck his cock, granny at the counter be damned.

Stiles couldn't call himself a complicated person.

"I'm afraid we don't buy or sell any kinds of weapon," the man said in a soft tenor, higher than Stiles expected, "and certainly wouldn't know where to begin valuing a katana, although I can tell you that mostly they are reproductions by American manufacturers. I'm sure our competitor would be able to help you more, now if you are interested in antique ceramics I can help." 

Behind him a pair of poorly cast spaniels were sat on a shelf staring at each other with glass eyes. They didn't look expensive Stiles thought. "Actually," he said, "those two red spaniels, my dad collects them, how much for the pair?"

Erika raised a silver eyebrow. "Five hundred dollars for the pair." Nash answered without a blink, "would that be cash or card?" 

“Cash if you’ll give me your number,” he said with a grin, Nash raised an eyebrow, “can’t blame a man for trying.” Erica laughed, putting down her knitting and writing something out on the card which she stuffed in the box with the ceramic dogs.

And that was how Stiles found himself revealing to Lydia a pair of red and white ceramic monstrosities that were too expensive to smash and far too ugly to give away. She simply laughed - hard enough that he thought she might rupture something. But Stiles didn’t care - he had the hot antique dealer’s number.

 

\---------------  
(Winter 1524)

Derek was exhausted from the ride back from Aix, although it normally took eight days he managed it in four when the news came back that his small homestead had burned to the ground. That was all the information he had gotten and the memory of his family’s home, and the ashes that remained of it, choked him.

He swung down off the hired horse, one as tired as he was although he had changed it at the last post. “Master Hale, thank goodness you came so quickly,” the Mayor said, offering his hand. He was a portly man with a ring of hair like a silver halo, and the veins in his nose were exploded into a bulbous knot of purple from years of fine food and wine. 

“My wife,” Derek struggled to get the words out. He didn’t know what he would do if he lost Paige too.

“Burned but well, your guest, however, he did not make it. We have put Mistress Hale up in the inn, but there is something else you should know.”

Derek shook the man’s hand, and pushed past him into the inn, taking the stairs that lined the wall two at a time, using the handrail to pull him up faster. Paige had been put in the room at the very end, her arm and shoulder were bandaged, and there was cloth wrapped around her breasts where she could not wear a bodice, the fabric went up around her neck and face, and her hair was cropped short around her head, but most surprisingly in her arms was a new baby, suckling at her right breast and she looked almost like an image of the Madonna as she sat there.

“I wasn’t gone that long,” he blurted out, and Paige looked at him, face covered in linen and ointments, poultices pressed to her skin and still as lovely as he ever saw her, and laughed.

“Husband,” she said holding out her bandaged arm to him, “this is Adam, he’s ours now, his mam died in childbed and,”

Derek sat next to her on the edge of the borrowed bed. “Anything you want, love,” he said and kissed her hair.

\---

Later as he slept on the floor by the bed she shared with their son, the boy curled up on the mattress beside her making little whiffles in his sleep, before he woke them with a hiccup that would become a cry. Paige made a noise of restrained pain as she went to reach for him, but Derek beat her there. “Will you tell me about what happened?” he said as he changed the soiled swaddling and used the clean edge, dipped in water to wipe away the mess. He remembered doing this for his own brothers and sisters when they had been small, before the fire.

“A woman came,” Paige said, “Peter told me to hide in the cellar, to close the latch and not come out until she was gone, she had hair like buckwheat and was beautiful in a hard way. She and Peter fought until she cut off his head, she called out to me, but I kept quiet, she said she knew I was there, and told me to pass on a message, although Peter had told her you had left me, that you would not return, she said she’d come back sooner or later, told her to kiss you for me, then she set the lantern to the thatch.”

Derek reached over and kissed her on the forehead, “I love you, lass,” he said into the remains of her dark hair, “but we have to leave here.”

Her dark eyes were full of love, and there was a hint of a smile on her face where she looked at him, with the baby resting against his shoulder. “As you wish, my lord,” she told him.

\---  
(Present )

“So,” Daehler drawled, sucking up one of his gummy worms with a horrible smacking of his lips, “you’ll never guess who we saw going into Nash’s shop.” Danny raised an eyebrow, it was hard to tell if it was for the horrid noises his partner was making or what he was saying. He didn’t say anything, he rarely needed to. Daehler liked talking for the sake of talking. “Stilinski.”

“Our Stilinski?” Danny asked.

“Flirting and the like,” Daehler continued, “looked real interested in his eighteenth century silver.” It was clearly meant to be an innuendo, albeit a very lousy one. “Bought some china dogs.”

Danny didn’t look impressed. “You think he’s after information about that damn sword.” There were plenty of emails from Stiles about the sword. “Or you think it’s because Christmas is coming and he’s got a Nanna that collects old dog statues?”

“It’s Stilinski,” Daehler said, eating another gummy worm, “of course it’s about the damn sword.”

\----

 

Derek overlooked Manhattan from his window, and sighed to himself around the cup of tea he was drinking. “Are you brooding again?” Erica asked him from the doorway. 

“It’s my stock in trade.” Derek answered by rote to her, wondering how much quieter his life would be without her. He had found her alone in a street in the midst of a shooting, her family were dead and he had remembered Paige and smiled and offered his arms to her. She had been with him ever since.

“You’re lonely.” She accused him, “why not go on a date with that hot young man that came into the shop.”

“I have more important things on my mind than sex at the moment, Erica.” He told her.

“So you are thinking about sex with him?” she asked. “Call him, arrange a date, what’s the worst that could happen?”

“I don’t know, the building he’s in gets burned down around him?” Derek asked her looking over his shoulder, “we know Silver is here, this is the gathering, we’re losing our heads left and right.”

“Well, if you’re going to die anyway,” she offered, “and New York Fire Department is one of the best in the world, Silver won’t be able to burn him down.”

“Why did I save you again?” he asked.

“You hadn’t encountered my sunny disposition.” She answered, it was an old joke between them. They had been doing that for years. Trading barbs between them, it was their way of sharing affection. “Phone him.”

\---

Stiles looked over the downstairs of the house one last time before he checked the chili in the pot, there was rice in the rice boiler ready to serve and the plates were in the warmer. There as bottled beer in the fridge, with glasses on the table ready for it to be poured, and the electric candles glowing in the sconces, and Chet Baker warbling from the hidden speakers. Part of him was reminding himself this wasn’t a date, it was a fact finding session, hence the tape recorder in the drawer and the gun in the music box, but still he was meeting a gorgeous man for dinner, in his own home, and well, he liked Nash. The sword was just a bonus.

Or maybe he’d get laid.

He opened the door to Nash, who was wearing a soft red henley under an antique military style pea coat and Stiles’ mouth went dry looking at him. People didn’t look like that in Hollywood movies. “So glad you could make it,” Stiles said as Nash offered him a smile. There was an old bottle of what looked like brandy under his arm.

“Glad you invited me.” Nash smiled at him, and Stiles considered wilting like a maiden in a Disney movie. People really shouldn’t look like that in real life, Stiles thought, as he guided him through the house, and noted how Nash spotted the china dogs on the mantel piece, and his face gave a little moue of surprise.

Stiles looked at the bottle, “I’ll just get some glasses for this,” he said, going into the kitchen, when he came back Nash was at the window, he hadn’t taken off his coat yet.

“What did you say you did again?” Nash asked.

“I work in acquisitions,” Stiles lied, “for the Met,” well it was a bit true, sometimes his findings did end up at the Met. The Metropolitan Museum loved him for it, the white Katana was going there as soon as it was cleared from Police Evidence because the Police sure as hell didn’t want to keep it with it being so very valuable.

“I got you this.” Nash handed him the wrapped package.

“You shouldn’t have,” Stiles blushed up to the roots of his hair. Nash was so charming and polite and gorgeous, people like this shouldn’t be real. He ripped open the paper to find his own picture staring at him, on the cover of his last book, “The Romance of the Sword.”

“Son of a bitch.” Stiles murmured, “where did you find this?”

“University book store, had one in stock.” Nash answered, “so are you going to tell me the truth now, or is this just entrapment?”

“Entrapment?” Stiles was baffled about that, “I,”

“So the .45 in the music box, the tape recorder, the police sat outside in the car….” Nash left it open.

Stiles went to the window where sure enough Danny and Daehler were sat outside in one of the most conspicuous looking cars Stiles had ever seen. “It’s not what you think.” He babbled. “Well it is, but it’s not, I mean, it’s not about the murders, I have nothing to do with that, it’s about the sword.”

“The Sword?” Nash asked. Everything about his tone was dripping venom, he sounded disgusted more than disappointed.

“The Tomodachi Katana,” Stiles continued, “the impossible sword, I have a sword in my lab that’s nearly three thousand years old, that is folded steel two thousand years before it was recorded anywhere in the world, a sword without a maker’s mark that shouldn’t exist but does, I…” He stopped, “Kirei.” he murmured the name that Satomi had found.

“I think this date is over, don’t you, doctor.” Nash grabbed his peacoat, “keep the wine.”

“Wait.” Stiles called out, “I’ve made all this dinner, at least let me make you a doggie bag.” Nash looked at him like he was insane, “otherwise I’ll be eating chili and sopapilla until next month.”

“How much did you make?” Nash asked, his hands loosened their death grip on the buttons of his coat. 

“I might have been a bit stressed,” Stiles admitted, “I cook when I’m stressed and well,” he shrugged, “I do make a killer sopapilla.” 

\---  
(1556)

Paige never lost her beauty to Derek, even with half of her face covered in burn scars, and her hair covered with a veil because of them. He never lost the look of wonder that he got when she smiled at him as they travelled, as he went from being recognised as her husband to being mistaken for her son.

He travelled with her all over Europe, little Adam on her knee at first, and then struggling, bored in the carriage as Derek did his best to teach him his letters, and Paige smiled at her two men as she called them, and used the same lace handkerchief to wipe their faces when they ate.

Derek never noticed the way the white started to outnumber the black hairs that she left on her pillow. He never noticed the way she ached a little more every winter, as he rubbed spiced oils into her joints. He never noticed the way she flinched when someone complimented on how attentive her son was when he took her arm at market. He loved her and looked at her with the same wonder.

He never noticed how tight her mouth got and how dark the scar tissue flashed when women approached him, letting their fingers linger against his arms at the smithy, or how Adam’s wife tried to find a wife for his “brother”, causing Paige to drop the cups or plates on the table a little heavier.

He never noticed how the artist he hired to paint her flirted with him, even as he tried to recapture her lost youth. He noticed her tired sighs but just wrapped his arms around her, rested his head on her shoulder and called her Blossom and all was well, because he never saw anything other than that beautiful girl he had met in France all those years ago. He watched days bleed into each other but never noticed the years.

When she coughed he brought her whiskey sweetened with honey and lemons from the nearby farms, and moved her where it was warmer, to Granada with it’s Moorish buildings as Adam, a grown man and married, whined about their loss.

He never noticed how she was called grandmother when she stepped out so she stopped leaving their little house.

He never noticed, because he loved her, and she would always be that girl he had met, with the smile that warmed him and the mole under her eye, though the scars had covered that long ago.

He only noticed when he came home and she was slumped over in the chair, as he put the package of bright lemon candies he had brought her on the table and he went to shake her awake. She was wrapped up in her shawl in front of the fire and her head drooped off to the side. She had been sleeping more lately, so he filled the kettle that there would be tea, there was still some of the lavender left in the caddy, and then laid his hand on her with a soft exhalation of “blossom,” and she was dead. She had died in the chair waiting for him, and he had not even seen her age.

That was when he noticed. 

And the next twenty years were a blur of drink and women and war just as Peter said they would be.

\---  
(Present)

Kastagir was one of the few Immortals Derek had ever liked, that he had never tried to kill him was considered a bonus. Kastagir was the sort of dark skinned and black eyed that meant he appeared mediterranean in Europe, North African in Africa, Hispanic in America and not offensively other in the rest of the world. He had a crooked jaw and a smile in his eyes. “Derek!” he said meeting him with an embrace.

“Scott!” he answered returning the embrace with gusto. He wasn’t sure if Kastagir was still going by that name, but he had always hated his own name so it was something of a joke between them.

“How long has it been?” Kastagir answered, “it feels like a hundred years.”

“Because it’s been a hundred years.” Derek answered him with a laugh.

“Who knew that the gathering would be held here, in America, if I were a betting man I would have argued Japan, you don’t get more distant than that.”

“You don’t get more foreign than New York.” Derek answered, pulling a flask from his jacket and handing it to his friend, careless of the fact that they stood on a bridge in the heart of Central Park.

“Are you trying to get me drunk?” Kastagir asked, uncorking the flask and taking a deep breath of the alcohol inside.

“Now would I do that? I haven’t gotten you drunk since that little thing on Boston Common.”

“A little thing,” Kastagir laughed, “it was a duel, and I was so drunk I not only let him kill me about twelve times over, I had to stop him in the middle so I could be sick. I only found out what happened later, I had to leave the colonies.”

Derek laughed. “You spent the next twenty years running the most profitable whore house in Paris, people still talk of you.”

Scott’s grin was a warm thing, “I am not the one who started a minor rebellion.”

“There was nothing minor about it.” Derek protested, “we overthrew a president.” And Kastagir butted his shoulder against Derek as they walked through Central Park talking.

\---

Bobby Finstock knew a few things about New York, he liked being called Cupcake, that everyone in this city was crazy, and the city would kill him if he went anywhere without Marie in the glovebox. Marie was his semi automatic uzi 9mm handgun, and if he had ever married he couldn’t have loved a real person as much as he loved Marie.

And of all the things he knew it would be Marie who saved him in this crazy city.

\---

Nash, Stiles found, was witty and had a terrible sweet tooth, they skipped the chili entirely, which was okay because it went in the freezer wonderfully, and just sat at the table drinking his wine and eating the sopapilla stuffed with cream and honey and dusted with powdered sugar. He was a fascinating conversationalist, when he had opened the brandy filling the room with the sweet scent of apples he had revealed it’s story.

“1783 was a terrible year for grapes,” he said pouring the wine, “so the vintner decided to experiment, he put slices of sweet apples and rose petal in the resulting juice and it was considered something of an abomination. I picked up the entire consignment at auction for a song, no one wanted it, I think the auctioneers just wanted the space back.”

Stiles swirled the brandy around in the glass. “This isn’t going to kill me, is it?” he asked.

“Try it, 911 will be here soon enough to revive you.” Nash had a wolfish grin and damn, Stiles thought, if it didn’t go straight to his crotch. It wasn’t fair that Nash was both gorgeous and an asshole, he had to be the serial killer, Stiles thought, because men like this had to have some sort of major flaw, and Nash was so perfect that it had to be something like being a serial killer. Stiles was wondering if it was worth it to get his head cut off for the sex.

The brandy was rich, sharp and a little sour with a musky aftertaste that was almost perfumed. It wasn’t unpleasant but strange and warmed him from his throat to his toes, and there was a faint aftertaste of spice. “Oh my god,” Stiles groaned, “that’s better than sex.”

“I wouldn’t go quite that far.” Nash said with a smirk, “but it’s very good isn’t it, I couldn’t sell it if I wanted to, but it goes down nice with sopapilla.”

“I do make an awesome sopapilla.” Stiles took the compliment as it was intended. 

Nash looked him up and down in what was clearly a sexual gesture, “you do, the heather honey is a lovely touch, I haven’t had it since I was a child.” There was a moment where he looked distant, almost fond. “I didn’t know you could buy it.” There was powdered sugar on his lips and Stiles wondered if he would let him kiss away the sheen of the brandy, the sugar around his mouth and the sticky honey on his tongue when the phone rang.

“I’m sorry, I just have to take this.” Stiles said standing up, he took the glass of brandy with him. 

“Stilinski,” he answered the phone, he hadn’t lied to Nash about that. Then he listened and frowned, “dammit,” he listened some more, “I’m on my way.” He turned to Nash, “I’m so sorry, I have to go, there’s been a murder.”

That answered that question, Stiles thought, if someone else had been beheaded it wasn’t Nash that was doing it, and that made it worse because now he really wanted to have sex with him.

\---

The sword was banal, Stiles thought, not nearly worth caring about, it was some sort of US cavalry rapier. The sort every antique store in New York had a pile of, what was more interesting was that it was in a hospital baggie where it had been taken from the intestines of a man who had surprised the killer and had, according to the victim, emptied a full mag from his beloved Marie, the semi automatic, into her and she had just got back up.

And wasn’t it a kick in Daehler’s teeth that the serial killer leaving antique swords all over New York next to severed heads was a woman. He had clearly wanted it to be Nash quite badly. He had even asked the victim if it was possible it was a woman in drag, until Stiles admitted he had been with Nash all evening and that there had been a police car outside his window confirming it.

The sketch of the murderer showed a handsome blonde woman with a cruel smile, a fleur de lys tattoo on her upper arm, and a horrid looking scar across her neck.

Even disappointed as he was about the sword, seriously, people had better crap in garage sales, he couldn’t help the huff of relief he felt that Nash wasn’t associated with the murders at all, but he couldn’t get the idea that Nash knew about the sword out of his head. The identification listed the body as Scott McCall.

 

\--------

There were plenty of churches in New York but it was a small one that Derek favoured. Every year on the same day he would come in, genuflect to the crucifix, light three candles, one for Paige, one for Peter and one for Adam, and would sit in the pews and watch them burn. He remembered them best that way. Allowing the memories to drift and catch amongst the old incense and body odour that typified old churches. There was a homeless person a few rows back snoring loudly, and a priest, surrounded by a gaggle of nuns, pottering about, but Derek didn’t really care.

It was only the quickening that alerted him that Silver was there. She sat down in the row behind him, wearing a skin tight black vest and blue rubber mini skirt that zipped down the back, fishnet stockings, and an oversized leather jacket over her shoulders. She had an elaborate choker of skulls around her throat and her hair was shaved on one side and hot pink on the other. “Nice look, Silver.” He sneered at her.

“Haven’t you heard, sweetie, I’m in disguise.” Her voice was rougher, deeper than he remembered it, but he supposed that was because of the scar across her neck. It was well known Peter had ripped her throat out, but missed the opportunity to take her head. She had what appeared to be a tattoo of vines curling up the bald side of her head.

“What do you want, Kate?” It had been five hundred years but it was how he had always called her in his head.

“What does every girl want?” she asked, “your head, the prize, world domination.” She rolled her shoulders, “Kastagir is dead,” she said, “that means it’s you and me.”

“I’m ready when you are, Kate.” Derek told her.

“Holy ground, Highlander,” she reminded him with a smile, “and besides, what’s victory without a little gloating. I would have liked a little more time before that asshole with a machine gun showed up, absolutely ruined my favourite jeans.” She had a flip sound to her tone, “I hate it when civilians get involved in our little games, don’t you, Der-bear.”

“Dont’ call me that.” Derek groused.

“It’s just not as fun as it used to be,” she smiled to herself remembering, “Kastagir went down so easy, you’d think he was drunk,” she laughed a little, “probably was, I haven’t had any fun since I ran down Petrovich in France, him and that whore of his.” Derek’s jaw tightened, “I took his head and then burned his woman,” she watched Derek’s reaction. “She wasn’t his woman,” she sneered, “she was your woman. Well, don’t that make it sweeter.”

Derek got up, dusted off his wool peacoat with his hands, “I’ll be waiting outside, Silver, when you’re ready.”

“I think I’ll just stay here a while, me and the Redeemer, we go way back, doncha know.”

“Can’t stay in here for ever, Silver.”

“Say my name, baby, I always love it when you say my name.” She grabbed his arm as he went to walk past. “The prize will be mine, Highlander, you might as well give up now.” He shrugged her arm off and left the church.

\---

Stiles pushed his way into the shop and went straight up to Erica, who was sat calmly knitting and drinking tea. “I want to speak to him.” He said.

“I’m afraid Mr Nash is not available at the moment,” she told him, “but if you’d like to leave a message I’ll make certain he gets it.” Her smile with her Elizabeth Arden lipstick was harsh and promised violence, she had heavy lidded eyes and a sort of lazy gaze, her hair, mostly grey now, pinned back from her head in an old Gibson girl style. She was wearing a Chanel suit that looked to be vintage, but sat there behind the desk knitting.

“Well maybe you can help me and tell me why the records saying that he’s working under a fake name, and that he actually died in childbirth.” Stiles spat the words out, “and better yet why he has the same signature as the man who he inherited this building from nearly five years ago, and the one before that and the one before that going back to the original land purchase in New Amsterdam.” She went very quiet.

“It’s all right, Erica,” Nash said from the doorway, “I have this.” He looked big and solid and Stiles was furious with him, “come upstairs.”

At the rear of the store was an elevator, hidden almost completely behind a display of ugly ceramic tea sets, the sort no one paid a second glance to, and when Stiles stepped inside it Nash pulled the grate shut. He silenced Stiles with a glare, as they went through one floor which was clearly used for storage up to the loft where Nash lived.

It was open and spacious and decorated with real antiques, seventeenth century tapestries lined the walls with old church pews and even a statue of the Madonna in an alcove amidst the industrial chic of the building itself. There was an old fashioned and battered couch next to oxblood leather wing armchairs and paintings, more than one of which appeared to be Nash himself. 

Nash went to a small cabinet and opened it, revealing a multitude of antique swords and daggers, Stiles mouth watered at the sight and took one out.

“It’s like a museum.” Stiles said, moving to the bureau that Nash had opened, “I haven’t seen a selection like this outside the Fitzwilliam in England.”

Nash turned, pressed the dagger he had taken out of the collection into Stiles hand, making Stiles face him. “My name is Derek Hale,” he said, “I was born in 1498 just outside Edinburgh and I cannot die.” Stiles made a sort of half laugh before Derek pulled his hands forward stabbing him in the belly.

Stiles made a noise like he was the one who had been gutted, but as he watched the skin knitted together leaving a faint scar amidst the blood. “My name is Derek Hale,” Nash, no, Derek, repeated, “I was born five hundred years ago and I cannot die.”

Stiles, not sure what else to do, with a hundred emotions swirling around his head like he was going to go mad, kissed him.

It was crazy, Stiles thought, kissing this crazy beautiful man with blood on his hands, but he wasn’t sure what else to do, when he could feel stubble under his fingertips and warm, sliding lips over lips and Derek was kissing him back, and there was blood on his fingers, still warm and tacky as he smeared it over Derek’s face, and it was Derek, not Nash, Derek, Derek who was kissing him back, and pressing him back against the couch with Derek’s hands up under his shirt and Derek’s hips pushing into his hips. 

Maybe it was crazy, Stiles thought, but he wanted this.

\---

Stiles woke up next to Derek, sleep warm and watching him with lazy eyes, and that’s when he realsed he had wrapped himself around Derek like an octopus, he still had that post orgasm laziness and soreness, the wonderful ache of muscles he hadn’t used in far too long. Derek reached down and traced the shape of his face with his fingers. “There’s something I need to tell you,” he said, and his voice was still sleep husky and more than anything Stiles wanted to kiss him silent.

“Is this bigger than the I am immortal revelation. Are you a god?” even half asleep Stiles was a snarky asshole.

“I am immortal,” Derek repeated, “and that’s only half the story. I don’t know why but there are others like me, and we caught in this terrible war with each other, and all we know is that the last man standing is going to win some prize.”

Stiles sat up from where he was leaning against Derek, and looked down at him. “And you don't’ think it’s going to be you.”

“I thought it was going to be Kastagir, but they found his body when we were having dinner.” Derek said sadly, “there is two of us left, and she is much more determined to live. Stiles, I want you to go from here, I want you to find someone else and be happy, because this isn’t going to work.” 

Stiles wrapped the sheet around himself. “You know,” he said, getting out of the bed, “if you wanted shot of me you probably shouldn’t have fucked me.” He turned and looked back over his shoulder, “I’ve known a lot of people scared to die, perils of being a sheriff’s son, but you, you’re just scared to live.” He tugged on his jeans, “don’t lose your head.” And at that Derek, still lying naked on the bed, started, “if you want the sword come to the university, I’ll say it was stolen.”

He pulled on his shirt and then slipped his feet into his shoes, not bothering to lace them. “But don’t be a coward, Derek, there are too many of them in this world.”

If he thought his heart would break in the elevator as he finished dressing, he said nothing. He said nothing to Erica as she watched him go, but her mouth had a disappointed little moue he didn’t see.

He didn’t see the woman with the pink hair watching him leave the building either.

\---

Stiles looked up from his microscope when he heard the noise at the door, he had Tori blaring from his ipod dock and was generally pissed. His coffee was stone cold beside him, and he knew that because he had just taken a mouthful of it, and even “The Springtime of his Voodoo” was not cheering him up the way that it normally did.

“Office hours are on a Wednesday,” he said without looking across, “make sure to close the door on your way out.” He wasn’t normally so short with his students, but he had had a bad day and it wasn’t like his office hours weren’t clearly posted on the door, and the notice board for the department, and usually so busy you needed to email ahead to make sure you could get in.

“Oh, I’m not here about my course, professor,” the woman who spoke had a voice that was deep and almost gravelly, and when he turned she was wearing a pair of sprayed on leather pants that were artfully distressed, a vest with a jaguar on it and an oversized leather jacket, despite the pink hair he could tell she wasn’t a student. She had a pair of sunglasses that she had pulled down on her nose and was smirking at him over. “You see, you and I, we have a little something in common.”

Stiles backed up to where the swords were stashed on the table, loosening one from it’s sheathe with his thumb. “Oh, now come on, sweetie, you don’t want to do that, do you? After all, he’s not going to come after you if you’re dead.”

“You’re shit out of luck, lady, he dumped me.” He had lifted the white tomodachi, Kirei, without realising, and when she saw it she smiled.

“And yet you have his sword, the sword he took from Petrovich when he killed him, and the Toledo,” she paused, her smirk, a plasticky crystal pink mockery of a smile, “from when he killed Fasil.” 

Stiles stumbled moving backwards, the light table behind him catching him on the hip. He took a deep breath and steeled himself, “what’s the saying, there can only be one.”

She didn’t rush him, like he expected. He could use a sword, years of kendo so he could feel the balance in a sword and when it was off, fencing so he could understand the reasoning behind rapiers versus broadswords, he was capable, not great, but he could hold his own, and maybe she understood that - and that’s why she tazed him, as the world went dark Tori sang sweetly, “But now I've got to worry, Cause boy you still look pretty, When you're putting the damage on.”

\---

Stiles woke up chained to a wall, and if that wasn’t a cliche he didn’t know what was, the woman had braided her hot pink hair and removed her jacket, and was slashing the white Katana, Kirei, through the air as if testing it for balance before she threw it over her shoulder like it was garbage, before she pulled out her own sword, a sturdy looking gladius.

It was more than capable of taking off a head. “Hey,” he asked, distracting her for a moment, “do you think any of the immortals ever used an axe, because you all using swords is a bit far fetched to me, I mean I study them and their manufacture and they were expensive because they only had one purpose, I can’t see spears being any good for beheadings, but maybe a naginata, but an axe would be great, even a morningstar at a push.”

“You are a strange mortal,” the woman, Silver, told him. “But yes, there were a few who used an axe, one, although you would not have heard of him used a double bladed axe as big as two human torsos, he was as slow as a stone but the power in him, it was remarkable. Didn’t let him keep his head though.”

“I study this sort of thing, I never really understood why swords took off so much when axes were so much better at the dismembering.”

“Swords were expensive,” she shrugged, “it was a status symbol to own one.” Stiles made a noise like he hadn’t thought of that before, but mostly he was keeping her talking. “Maybe it’s because you can get a good thrust in with a sword, an axe could get caught on body armour.”

“That’s why they gave them flanges.” Stiles told her, “you could get right in there with the corner of it. Of course then you get your Vietnamese throwing axe, it has a spike on the back, they give them out to combat soldiers you know, like those shovel knife things I can never remember the name of.”

“An E-tool.” She told, “you can get some decent damage with one of those, took the head off a spetsnaz with one, came clean off, the glock feldspaten is a lovely tool to work with, if they had have been around when I was getting started I don’t think I would have ever changed weapons.”

“What was around?” he asked, “if you don’t mind me asking.”

“Oh you should know better than to ask a lady her age,” she gave him a smile, “but I killed my first immortal with a sharpened piece of obsidian, sawed his head clean off. He recognised me long before I knew what I was, best thing he ever did. I killed so many just copying his technique, find them young, burn them out kill them when they were incapacitated with pain and melting skin,” she was right beside him now, “ever smell a body burn, professor?” she asked, “it’s like roasting pork, and it spits, the skin splitting as the fat boils, and it’s so much better when they’re Immortal, isn’t it, Derek?” she said turning on her heel.

Stiles hadn’t heard him approach. He wondered how Kate had. Derek didn’t look like he was dressed for battle, he was wearing slacks and dress shoes, but he bent to pick up the katana. “You know Peter would be heartbroken to see how you treat his sword, Kate.” He said.

“He should have thought of that before he tried to cut off my head, Derek,” she used his name as an insult.

“Stiles, are you alright?”

“Me, peachy keen, just hanging around, you know how it is, talking about my next book, no big.” Stiles said rattling the chains around his wrists for effect. Kate hadn’t had a long enough chain to loop it over the iron pipe, so instead she had given him two sets of handcuffs, one set was fluffy pink, and used them to fix him to the pipe. It wasn’t as uncomfortable as it could have been, and there wasn’t much strain on his chest. He supposed it didn’t matter to her if he was comfortable, she would kill him when he was done.

“For the record,” Derek said, unsheathing the katana, in his hands it was like a line of light, and Stiles thought of the lost Masamune Katana, said to be so sharp and perfectly balanced it could cut light, and this sword was older, and still being used for it’s distinct purpose. It he hadn’t been chained to wall awaiting imminent death he would have felt honored, “empty warehouses aren’t your usual style, I was expecting fire and brimstone.”

“A girl’s gotta change with the times.” She admitted, “maybe I’ll do the fire and brimstone thing when the prize is mine.”

“I’ve got to try and stop you.” Derek said and they were circling now.

“You were never my match.” Silver told him bluntly, “I’ve been doing this a lot longer than you’ve been alive, I carry the Quickening of most of the immortals inside me, just let me take your head.”

“It wouldn’t be fun if I didn’t make you work for it.” Derek told her, “surely we owe each other that much.”

“What do you owe me, Derek, for burning down your house, burning your family alive, listening to your little sisters scream?”

Stiles knew what Silver was doing, she was trying to enrage Derek so he would make mistakes, but the way he moved, it was perfect kendo, the long slow movements as he watched for gaps in her defence, as if he was beyond rage or anger, there was just the sword and he was an extension of it, as the swords clashed, moving around the open floor with each parry and riposte. Silver was quicker but Derek had more strength and they were more evenly matched than Stiles had even guessed they would be. Kate was wild but Derek was disciplined. Silver had used her reputation and speed to defeat most of the others, Stiles could see, but Derek didn’t care.

A gladius was used for stabbing and that was the point, the others wanted to behead so they used sweeping slashes, easily defeated by stabbing, if she caught them in the right places she could disarm them easily and then take the head off when they were immobile. And Derek seemed to know that. So every time she thrust he twisted so that it was a flesh wound, sore but would not incapacitate him.

Derek had come here to die, and so any movement he made was something he didn’t expect. Every time Kate lunged forward with a thrust he let it take him, because it couldn’t kill him, even as his slashes opened up lines on her legs and torso.

“Derek,” Stiles called, “Kirei, she’s iridium.” He hoped that Derek knew what it meant. He must have realised because he changed his stance and the next time Kate went to stab at him with her gladius he brought the katana’s sharp edge down on it shearing the blade in two. From there with nothing to protect her but the hilt of her broken sword Kate didn’t stand a chance and she knew it.

She tried but it was only a matter of time before he head came clear of her body, falling backwards, Stiles noticed, like nearly headless Nick and that’s when he slammed his eyes closed because he didn't want to see her die.

He felt rather than saw the power that erupted from her, he heard the windows shatter high above them, and then the world went mercifully black as the shockwave slammed his head hard against the wall.

 

He woke up looking at Derek. “Is it over?” Stiles asked.

“You could do with a hospital, but it was only your head, you’ll probably be fine.” Kate’s body was lying there. “I can call someone out to get rid of her body.”

“So, the prize, was it worth it?” Stiles said, trying to get up but Derek had his arms around him.

“I’ll tell you when we’re old men.” Derek said and then kissed him.


End file.
